Human dignity and conscience

Choose an option and you are told at once whether it was right. The answer and the reason wait behind “Show the answer”.

A watercolor of three lambs standing side by side around a large brass compass and a lit lantern, one of them resting a hoof on the compass

What is human dignity rooted in?
1. In having been created in the image of God
2. In standing above other living things in intelligence and ability
3. It is granted in proportion to what a person contributes to society
4. It is something the law of the land has assigned to people
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Answer ① In having been created in the image of God
Dignity is not something a person achieves; it is stamped on them in the very act of creation. Hanging it on ability, on usefulness or on the law sounds reasonable enough — but then the dignity of an infant who cannot speak yet, or of someone too ill to do anything at all, would have to shrink.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1700-1702, 356-357
A person's dignity can shrink according to the sins they have committed or the circumstances they have fallen into.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ② No
No. Sin dims the image of God, but it cannot rub it out. That is why the Church teaches that the same dignity belongs to the sinner, to the prisoner and to the most powerless of all, and why it refuses every kind of discrimination.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1700, 1707, 1934-1935
Which of these describes true freedom best?
1. Doing whatever you please with nothing in the way
2. Something that can exist only where there is no law and no commandment
3. Something that grows the more you know the good and choose it, and that turns into slavery the more you sin
4. Choosing nothing at all and leaving every possibility open
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Answer ③ Something that grows the more you know the good and choose it, and that turns into slavery the more you sin
Freedom is not the range of things you could pick but the power to move toward the good. The first and the second set freedom against the commandments — the common mistake — and down that road freedom ends as slavery to passion and habit.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1731-1733, 1740
What are the three sources that decide whether an act is good or evil?
1. The character you were born with, your feelings and your habits
2. The intention alone — a good heart is all it takes
3. The result alone — it is enough that more people end up better off
4. The object of the act chosen, the intention it is meant to serve, and the circumstances the act stands in
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Answer ④ The object of the act chosen, the intention it is meant to serve, and the circumstances the act stands in
All three have to be good for the act to be good, and one of them going wrong is enough to make the act evil. The second looks only at the heart and the third counts only gains and losses; both end by justifying even acts that are evil in themselves.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1750-1755
What does the Church make of the saying “the intention was good, so the act is good too”?
1. Right — if the heart is good, the act becomes good as well
2. Wrong — an act that is evil in itself is not made good by any intention, however good
3. Right — provided the result leaves more people better off
4. The Church has not settled it yet, so it is left to each person to judge
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Answer ② Wrong — an act that is evil in itself is not made good by any intention, however good
A good intention can make a good act better, but it cannot turn an evil act into a good one. That is why the Church keeps refusing the reckoning that says “a bad means will do, so long as the end is good”.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1753, 1756, 1789
Feelings such as joy or fear are in themselves neither good nor evil.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Feelings are part of being human, and they become good or evil only as reason and will take them up and carry them somewhere. Treating the feeling itself as a sin to be crushed, and taking whatever a feeling demands as your truest self, are the two mistakes people fall into on either side.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1763, 1767-1768
Which of these describes conscience best?
1. The uncomfortable feeling that comes over you when you break a rule society taught you
2. The permission you give yourself to go ahead and do as you like
3. A judgment in the depths of a person's heart, telling whether the act about to be done is good or evil
4. Working out in advance what would be to your own advantage
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Answer ③ A judgment in the depths of a person's heart, telling whether the act about to be done is good or evil
Conscience is neither a mood nor a taste but a judgment of practical reason, and the most secret place where a person hears the voice of God. Read it as a feeling only, as the first choice does, and a conscience gone blunt will look like no conscience at all; read it as the second does, and conscience turns into a right to do as you please.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1776-1778
No one may be forced to act against their own conscience.
1. Yes
2. No
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Answer ① Yes
Yes. Conscience is where a person stands alone before God, so nobody — in religious matters above all — may be pushed into going against it. But this right does not mean “whatever my conscience approves is thereby right”; it walks side by side with the duty to form that conscience well.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1782, 1790
Which of these is true about forming your conscience?
1. It is complete from birth, so there is nothing left to form
2. It is the work of a lifetime, formed in the light of God's word, the teaching of the Church and the guidance of the Holy Spirit
3. If you follow what most of the people around you do, it comes right by itself
4. If you ask someone who knows and do as they say, no judgment of your own is needed
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Answer ② It is the work of a lifetime, formed in the light of God's word, the teaching of the Church and the guidance of the Holy Spirit
A conscience does not grow on its own; it is formed by hearing the word and examining yourself in its light. The third seats public opinion in the place of conscience, and the fourth hands the judgment over to somebody else and so lets go of your own conscience in the end.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1783-1785
What does the Church teach about a conscience that judged wrongly out of ignorance?
1. Conscience can go wrong, so in the end it is not to be trusted
2. If the person meant it sincerely, what they did becomes a good act
3. Not having known is never taken into account, so the responsibility is exactly the same
4. Where the ignorance was something the person could do nothing about, the evil is not imputed to them — but what was done remains an evil
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Answer ④ Where the ignorance was something the person could do nothing about, the evil is not imputed to them — but what was done remains an evil
The key is telling responsibility apart from good and evil. The second supposes that sincerity changes the facts, and the third makes no allowance for what a person could not have known — though where the ignorance came of not troubling to find out, the responsibility stays.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1790-1793